Prevention is better than cure: 60 years of protecting Lake Taupō's clear water

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-04-30 05:00

New Zealand

Photo by Zon Dasein on Unsplash

Lake Taupō has retained its exceptionally clear waters, despite challenges from soil erosion, dairy expansion, and phosphorus and nitrogen contamination. Meanwhile the water quality in many of Aotearoa's other lakes continues to degrade - so what makes Taupō different? A new paper describes sixty years of shared effort to protect NZ's largest lake: including managing the catchment area, using science to shape land-use decisions to preserve the lake, and working cooperatively across central, regional and local government, and with Ngāti Tūwharetoa.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research Wiley, Web page

Journal/
conference: Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Otago

Funder: This study was supported by the J D Stout Fellowship 2019, Judith Binney Fellowship 2022, and a Ministry of Culture and Heritage Award in History 2020.

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.